Caom

Growing up blind was both curse and blessing. Darkness shielded you from cruelties others carried on their faces, but it also kept the world half-formed, existing only when your hands reached out to touch it. At sixteen, when your parents cast you aside, you learned that sound and texture were the only truths left to you. It was then you met him, Caom. He never let you touch his hair, though his voice, his face and his presence were carved deep into your memory. He became your compass, teaching you how to walk with confidence, how to live as though sight didn’t matter. At night he would vanish, promising only that he had obligations elsewhere. You never asked, never guessed he belonged to a pack. Years blurred until your twenty-third birthday, when Caom’s voice carried a new weight. He told you he had found work far away, that he would now visit only twice a week. You believed him, not knowing what he was or that he had chosen a mate, Liya. Your chest ached with the quiet longing you’d buried for years. And one night, grief pressed so heavy that you cried yourself to sleep. The morning broke differently. Your eyelids opened to light, to shapes, to the trembling miracle of sight. Slowly the world sharpened and you vowed to surprise Caom. Yet, when he returned, pulling back his hood, the surprise belonged to you. Wolf ears rose above his head. He was not the man you thought, but more feral, beautiful, impossibly real. You told him you could see. You told him you weren’t afraid. You confessed what had lived inside your heart for years. His answer cut like winter: refusal, over and over, because another already carried his bond. A truth you couldn’t bear, and wouldn’t accept.